1

Weather file problem in Open Studio

I am fairly new to Open Studio and wanna model a sample building in Vancouver BC, Canada. When I chose the weather files for Vancouver, and run the simulation it fails. I get 6 warnings and 1 error on the output panel. However, I have no fatal or sever error in the .err file! Its just warnings In the tree tab I get this error: Process exited with a non-zero exit code of: 1

When I change the city (use Seattle for example) and re-run the same simulation it works perfectly!

Any idea what could be the cause of this problem?

Al's avatar
15
Al
asked 2016-06-16 18:24:39 -0500
__AmirRoth__'s avatar
4.4k
__AmirRoth__
updated 2020-01-20 12:12:21 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag close merge delete

Comments

Can you put a link to that weather file?

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec (2016-06-18 03:10:07 -0500) edit

Yeah, this is the weather file I downloaded from the website https://energyplus.net/weather-search...

Al's avatar Al (2016-06-20 11:31:15 -0500) edit
add a comment see more comments

3 Answers

4

I compared the Vancouver CWEC weather file with the Vancouver CN2014 weather file. In the CWEC file, the name of the station is Vancouver Int'l_BC_CAN. Recalling that the ' sometimes creates problems, I changed the name to Vancouver Int_l_BC_CAN in the EPW and DDY files. The project runs fine with this change.

Chris Jones's avatar
1.1k
Chris Jones
answered 2016-06-24 08:07:11 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag delete link

Comments

That's some fine detective work, @Chris Jones! The Victoria file I used that also failed is located at "Victoria Int'l".

ericringold's avatar ericringold (2016-06-24 08:24:35 -0500) edit

I checked a few more Canadian CWEC EPW files - many have Int'l in the name. Others also have the dreaded ' such as St John's. I guess someone will have to run a script to replace all those offending ' characters.

Chris Jones's avatar Chris Jones (2016-06-24 08:55:51 -0500) edit

Yes! That's it! Mine works with Vancouver and Victoria weather after that change! Thanks a bunch Chris Jones!

Al's avatar Al (2016-06-24 11:38:56 -0500) edit
add a comment see more comments
1

I ran your model (OS v1.9.0) and the run failed. The stderr file in the job folder (right click the job that errors in the tree view and click 'Open Directory' to get to the temp directory for that job) contains the following:

C:/Users/ericr_000/AppData/Local/Temp/OpenStudio.e10744/resources/run/6-UserScript-0/user_script.rb:155:in `eval': Optional not initialized (RuntimeError)
from C:/Users/ericr_000/AppData/Local/Temp/OpenStudio.e10744/resources/run/6-UserScript-0/resources/os_lib_reporting.rb:2087:in `block (2 levels) in design_day_table'

This points to this line in the v1.9.0 version of the standard reporting measure. The error message is indicating that the sql query for information about the design days is returning an empty 'optional' value. I can't identify what about the design days the measure isn't agreeing with, but trying a run with the Victoria file yields the same error. Since you mentioned the model runs fine with Seattle design days, there might be something about Canadian weather files that causes the error. @David Goldwasser

Note: if you update to the latest major release (OS v1.11.0) the run will not fail, however in the standard report you will see the error message. So whatever it is is still a problem, just not an OS run-killing problem:

image description

Which points to the same line in the latest standard report measure.

ericringold's avatar
10.6k
ericringold
answered 2016-06-23 20:25:00 -0500, updated 2016-06-23 21:37:37 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag delete link

Comments

I ran the same test. EnergyPlus runs and the EnergyPlus output htm table is generated and results look reasonable. But the same design_day_table error is thrown and the OpenStudio results html file does not get generated.

I also ran the file with the Vancouver CN2014 weather file generated by Whitebox Technologies - this weather file behaves correctly so the problem must originate in the Canadian CWEC weather files posted on the EnergyPlus site.

Chris Jones's avatar Chris Jones (2016-06-24 07:47:31 -0500) edit
add a comment see more comments
-1

Any ideas guys howto fix it? Cheers

Al's avatar
15
Al
answered 2016-06-23 12:33:54 -0500
edit flag offensive 0 remove flag delete link

Comments

Trying looking at the error output text file to help determine what the exact issue is. This has always been useful for me when trying to figure out errors.

Dustin's avatar Dustin (2016-06-23 13:52:53 -0500) edit

Thats the thing tho. I get a bunch of warnings, but no sever or fatal errors to work on. This is the error file

Al's avatar Al (2016-06-23 14:36:00 -0500) edit
Al's avatar Al (2016-06-23 14:40:01 -0500) edit

Switch to the tree view in the 'Run Simulation' tab (like shown here), right click on the line that has a 1 in the 'Errors' column and select 'Show Job Warnings And Errors'. Copy that text and add it to your original question.

ericringold's avatar ericringold (2016-06-23 14:50:44 -0500) edit

Just did. Thanks Eric!

Al's avatar Al (2016-06-23 15:14:55 -0500) edit
add a comment see more comments